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Jul
5
(2007)
1 Month with Google Reader
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: aggregator, blogbridge, google, google reader, rss.
I can’t believe it’s been a whole month since I started trying out Google Reader (GR) full time. I wanted to see if I could live in a browser-based aggregator, and was curious about how far it had come since the early days.
The short version is: it’s less efficient at reading boatloads of feeds and items. But, the always-on, available-anywhere design of GR makes it worthwhile.
The long version is, well, longer. I still much of the niceties of BlogBridge (BB). Things like having a “photo gallery” view, for viewing images in feeds (I subscribe to a fair number of Flickr tag feeds, so this is quite handy). I’ve got a workaround for the star ratings that BB uses - I’ve created two “tags” in GR: “5-stars” and “4-stars” and have applied them to appropriate feeds. That definitely helps prioritize reading important stuff from all of my feeds/tags without having to hunt for them. Because it’s browser based, I can use native del.icio.us interfaces, so that feature from BB isn’t missed. The most annoying thing I’ve found with GR isn’t directly GR’s fault. I have to do a fair bit of clicking to get through all of my tags. I need to do some more work to add appropriate feeds to “5-stars”, “4-stars”, “3-stars” etc… so I can focus on levels of importance rather than subjects.
I do like the “trends” view in GR. Not because it is helpful in organizing or accessing information (it isn’t), but it’s kinda interesting in its own right. Here’s a screenshot as of 5 minutes ago:
I’m a bit surprised at just how much I’m reading. Almost 18,000 items in a month? I’d have never guessed that. Actually, almost half of that isn’t really “reading” per se, but “viewing”. Photos from Flickr. Which is why the “photo gallery” view would be great.
There are some shortcomings.
- I’ve got a nagging feeling that by using GR, I am continuing to “feed the beast” - by teaching Google about what interests me, and by providing guidance about relationships between feeds and items.
- There isn’t a “blogroll” or live OPML view of my tags/folders. BlogBridge lets me publish tags as live OPML documents, which is how my edublogs directory is managed. There isn’t currently a way to replicate that from within GR. Yes, I could periodically export a tag as an OPML file, and post that somewhere. Not the same.
All in all, I think I’ll keep using Google Reader for now. I’ll have to figure out how to reconcile my feed subscriptions with BB so that I can keep maintaining the edublogs directory, but that will work itself out somehow.
Comments
7 Responses to “1 Month with Google Reader”
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You’ve certainly given it a fair run. The lack of a blogroll is insane; it would take but a few bits og Google brainwork to add it. My lazy way around has been:
(1) export OPML from Google
(2) Go to bloglines- delete everything
(3) import opml to bloglines
and use BL for my roll. Silly.
I’ve also noticed my feed reading approach has changed. I used to troll each feed )blog by blog);in GR I read a whole group in the foler structure I have “edtech”, “nmc feeds”, etc.
yeah… I keep checking my “manage tags” page to see if the “opml url” link has magically shown up next to all public tags. no luck so far…
I’ve never liked reading individual feeds, one at a time, or even categories of blogs. I first read all “5-star” feed items, then all “4-star” items, then “edublogs”, “technology”, “science”, etc… and then various photo feeds (I start with Kihei, then move up to Maui, then up to Hawaii, then back home to Calgary, my Flickr contacts, Interestingness, etc…) A Gallery view would be soooo nice for this, rather than endlessly scrolling through page after page of mostly empty whitespace to the right of thumbnail images…
just pushed GR over 18,000 items in 30 days. 5 new “content” items, and about 90 photos…
You pretty much perfectly sum up my own experience with switching. The availability (and the performance at startup) is a big plus. The lack of proper OPML support (for subscribing and for exporting) and lack of support for authenticated feeds are the biggest problems for me!
Good report. Useful for those of us considering more Googlification.
I always read my feeds by category - folders, in Bloglines.
D’Arcy,
I’ve been using GR for more than 6 months, but I gave blogbridge a try last night. I’m staying with GR, but there is one feature of blogbridge that was most appealing - I loved that I could put in keywords and have them highlighted in an article. That feature really makes it easy to focus on the items that are most important to me.
@Heather - the highlighting is great. I still miss that. And the photo album view, which is SOOOO much better for viewing Flickr feeds. Also, the star rating system works much better than GR’s “create a tag and call it 5-stars” system.